Brilliance

Baker & TaylorFederal agent Nick Cooper draws on his supernatural ability to eliminate terrorists to hunt down a dangerous man who committed a horrific massacre on Wall Street that left hundreds dead and injured.

Brilliance Audio

A 2013 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original

In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in—and betray his own kind.

From Marcus Sakey, “a modern master of suspense” (Chicago Sun-Times) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), comes an adventure that’s at once breakneck thriller and shrewd social commentary; a gripping tale of a world fundamentally different and yet horrifyingly similar to our own, where being born gifted can be a terrible curse.

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Horrible, horrible book - - it is supposed to be a thriller or action story, yet there is never any premise presented. If a book is supposed to have a plot, it must have a premise - - the PREMISE is missing in action! ! !
How in the world do these books ever get published? Evidently some earlier commenters never require any premise, but those of us who actually have a life require a premise - - one cannot simply state, that person is magical, these people are the enemy - - there must be explained a premise for the story arc.
The book is an example of disgraceful writing - - if it went by any editor, said editor should be fired. [It is even worse than those silly paranormal books which are premised that the main character is an agent with the Witches Intelligence Agency {WIA, instead of the CIA, of for joy} and all is established!?!?!]
I doubt even in comic book form it would have flown?

A thought-provoking, highly readable thriller with a likable protagonist. The setting is futuristic, but not very far in the future; the personal, societal and political responses to a situation some perceive as threatening are not futuristic at all-- they are very scarily realistic. Recommendable!

A conspiracy thriller in a Heroes/X-Men-type setting. Except no one's flying or teleporting; the "Brilliants" in this story are born with gifts, but they're much more to do with exceptional pattern-recognition skills - so, reading people's intentions, honesty or even their movement by their body language, or reading the patterns in the stock market so easily they rack up $3 billion before anyone catches on...

Sakey's main character, Nick Cooper - a Brilliant himself - is very convincing as a federal agent who truly believes that he is helping to keep the balance between Normals and Brilliants by hunting those of his kind who become dangerous... until his world crumbles around him and he's forced to make a decision that could plunge the country into a devastating civil war.

While the concept's not anything new, the world Sakey has built here is much more believable than that in Heroes, X-Men, etc. He also does an amazing job of pulling you into the events through the sometimes agonizing decisions his characters have to make, which always makes for a great read.